Part of the Essentra Scientific Services laboratories at Newcastle, UK.

Essentra Scientific Services (ESS) has published its latest research into the quantitative analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contained in cigarettes.

In the study, which was conducted by Dr. William Guthery and Dr. Mike Taylor, the yields of 16 PAHs cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as potentially harmful compounds were tested and examined.

“PAHs were first isolated in the 1930s,” ESS, part of the Filter Products division of Essentra PLC, said in a press note. “One of the first PAHs to be identified was benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), which is included among the 44 constituents contained on the ‘Hoffmann analytes’ list of harmful compounds found in tobacco smoke.

“In Brazil and Canada it is currently mandatory to test tobacco products against the Hoffmann list. In recent years, the U.S. FDA has sought to expand on this with the identification of 93 harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHC), including 16 PAH compounds. In the United States, the testing of an abbreviated list containing 20 HPHC compounds including B[a]P was made compulsory in 2012. Before this latest study, published data for the 16 PAHs on the full FDA list had been limited, which led Essentra Scientific Services to conduct its research.”

The yields of the 16 PAHs were determined from cigarette mainstream smoke condensate extracts using gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in a method validated for both ISO and Health Canada Intense (HCI) smoking protocols.

The research paper presents the comparative results obtained for five branded cigarettes and three reference cigarettes.

“This work demonstrates that the 16 PAHs listed by the FDA can be measured in smoke condensate using the methods outlined in our latest research paper,” said Taylor.

“The method provides the flexibility to be able to determine B[a]P and other PAHs if required, and triple quadruple MS provides a reliable means to analyze these components without employing complex clean-up procedures.”